Name: Neck of Mutton, with a Pit of Turnips
Ingredients: 1 neck of mutton; turnips; béchamel sauce; pepper; coarse sea salt

Why it works: Turnip and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,252 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Neck of Mutton, with a Pit of Turnips

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the neck of mutton in a white braise until tender.
Boil the turnips in the braise until done.
Remove the turnips, squeeze them dry, and rub them through a tammy.
Place the turnip puree in a saucepan with a little béchamel and heat while stirring until hot.
Season with pepper and coarse sea salt, then arrange around the dish.
Remove the mutton, dry it with a cloth, and place it on the dish.
Pour a little béchamel over the mutton.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,252 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,442 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Mutton + turniptop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,558 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Turnip + saucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together943 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Mutton + saucetop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,087 recipes

Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).